Venezuela: Latest News

By Sol Maria Castro, www.veninvestor.com

* AN session to pass new modifications to Procedures and
Debates Regulations suspended.

The special session to pass a new reform to the Procedures and Debates
Regulations this Wednesday had to be suspended after the opposition
legislators noisily staged their protest. With this new reform, (the
ninth in three years, and the third in the last six months),
pro-government legislators intend to limit the number of legislators in
the debate of laws to only 10 four-minute participations, a “fast track”
that would allow them to pass drafts classified as “emergency” in record
time during a valid session. Other modifications will allow the
President to convoke sessions 24 hours in advance anywhere in the
country outside the premises, and penalize any legislator who uses
violence as a method of participation in the National Assembly sessions.
The latest reform passed in a park near Miraflores, contested in the
Supreme Court by opposition legislators has not been addressed yet.

* Opposition will decide on regional candidates after RR.

Although not an official decision, the strongest proposal within the
umbrella opposition group, Democratic Coordinator, CD, is to allow all
candidates to run in the upcoming regional elections of governors,
mayors and councilmen register, and negotiate and decide on consensus
candidates only after the presidential recall referendum has been held.
The National Electoral Council announced said elections will take place
on August 1, and all candidates must register before March 30.

* CNE approved the Tupamaros as a political party.

The National Electoral Council approved the request the pro-government
armed Marxist group known as Tupamaros made to the electoral body last
September to be acknowledged as a political party: the Tupamaro
Revolutionary Movement (MRT). One of the leaders of the new party, Luis
Carias, announced that they’re giving up “extremist” viewpoints. NB:
The latest “extremist” viewpoint, part of their urban warfare operation
against the “enemies of the revolution” was an attack with handguns and
rifles on January 16, 2004, against a group of policemen and bystanders
outside a subway station in a sector near 23 de Enero neighborhood where
the group is located. Four were wounded.

* January 23 opposition march ready.

Miranda State governor, and Democratic Coordinator spokesman, Enrique
Mendoza, informed Tuesday that all legal and logistics requirements for
the opposition-organized march and rally on January 23 have been met.
The CD estimates some 100,000 people will attend the final rally on
Victoria Avenue after walking along an average of 16 kms, from five
departing points: Chuao, Altamira, Santa Fé, El Paraíso and Santa
Mónica. Mendoza added that the opposition march will never come across
the pro-government march which goes from the Supreme Court to the
National Electoral Council downtown.

* Government begins anti-Mega-fraud campaign.

The pro-government electoral Ayacucho Command has begun the campaign “I
did not sign against Chávez” in what is known as the new Dignity Mission
which will be extended to February 4. The objective according to a
Command’s document is to collect 5 million signatures repudiating the
presidential recall referendum to generate an opinion movement whose
guidelines are “to turn the forgery in a public order problem, to
provoke an instinct reaction of deep disgust and repulse in the
collective, capable of mobilizing the traditionally apathetic sectors so
it is the people who penalize the fraud criminals.” The declarations
will be submitted to the National Electoral Council between March 15 and
April 15.

* Information Minister claims government is the victim of
violence.

The Minister of Information and Communication, Jesse Chacón, denied the
government is behind the violent acts which took place on Sunday when a
group of political leaders from the socialist party MAS were attacked by
a pro-government mob downtown, claiming it was illogical for the
government to promote a climate of instability when the first victim of
violence is the government itself. The Minister said he suspected the
opposition is involved in the events and explained this could be “an
opposition strategy in view of the fact that President Hugo Chávez has
strengthened his image as a result of his social policies.” Chacón also
informed the Minister Council had approved Bs. 50 billion to equip 500
ambulatory clinics for the “Into the Slums” Mission.

* One Chávez to Cuba among Chancellery moves.

President Hugo Chávez has appointed his elder brother, Adán Chávez as
the new Ambassador to Cuba, according to statements made by Foreign
Affairs Minister, Roy Chaderton. Julio Montes, current Ambassador to
Cuba since 2000 will take over as director to the Secretary of the
Presidency, Adán Chávez’s current position. Although not official yet,
it is well known Chaderton will go to France as Ambassador; candidates
for the new Minister include present Ambassador to the Organization of
American States, Jorge Valero, current Ambassador to France and former
Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Jesús Arnaldo Pérez, and
current Ambassador to Spain, and former wife of the Attorney General,
Gladys Gutiérrez.

* Former Colombian Minister ratifies President Chávez’s
conversation on FARC.

In a local radio interview this Wednesday, former Minister of Foreign
Affairs of Colombia, Guillermo Fernández de Soto, ratified what he said
a day earlier about the obvious relation between President Chávez and
the guerrilla group FARC in response to statements made by Venezuelan
Foreign Affairs Minister, Roy Chaderton, who said the media had twisted
Fernández de Soto’s statements. Fernández de Soto revealed that
President Hugo Chávez confessed to Andrés Pastrana, Colombian president
at the time that the FARC had asked him to sell them weapons and he had
declined. Fernández de Soto said those words revealed a direct
relationship between the two when there was an ongoing conflict. He
added that the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Ramón Rodríguez
Chacín, acting as the government’s envoy visited the distension zone in
El Caguan without notifying the Colombian government, and also created
numerous difficulties in the peace conversations with the ELN, which led
the Colombian government to threaten with declaring him persona “non
gratta”. Chaderton had said on Tuesday the local media twisted Guillermo
de Soto's statements, "an accusation coming from opposition and media
madness in Venezuela."